Which bike to rent in Vietnam: scooter, semi-automatic or a real motorcycle

The three classes you will actually be offered in Vietnam, who each one suits, and the two mistakes that ruin trips - picking too much bike, and picking too little.

Fact-checked: August 6, 2026

Live rental prices, and every bike shows whether it needs a licence

Browse bikes

Automatic scooter: the default, and usually right

Twist and go, nothing to learn, room for shopping under the seat. For city riding, beaches, cafes and day trips within an hour of town, a 110-160cc scooter is the correct answer and everything else is showing off. There are plenty of them in the catalogue, because most real trips here need nothing more.

Where a scooter stops making sense: long mountain descents, where small brakes and no engine braking get hot; and dirt, where small wheels and street tyres do not hold.

Semi-automatic: the local answer

A Honda Wave or a Sirius has gears but no clutch lever: you shift with your foot and cannot stall it. It is the most common bike in the country, cheap to rent, and it copes with hills that make a scooter struggle. If you have never ridden anything with gears, this is a gentler place to learn than a clutch bike, and you learn it in about twenty minutes.

Manual motorcycle: only if you already ride

Enduros like the XR150 and Honda CRF, classics like the FTR223, and everything larger. These need a category A licence, real experience and a genuine reason: mountain passes, dirt, long distances, two-up with luggage. On a manual bike Vietnamese traffic asks more of you than the bike does - first gear, heavy clutch work and unpredictable turns across your line, all at once.

The two mistakes

Too much bike. A 400cc machine in Da Nang traffic is slower, hotter and more frightening than a 125 scooter, and the first drop at walking pace costs more than the whole rental. Displacement is not the same thing as capability here.

Too little bike. A 110cc scooter with two adults and backpacks on the Hai Van Pass is genuinely unsafe: it will not hold speed uphill and it will not hold the road downhill. Two-up in the mountains, take 150cc as the floor - that is where the extra displacement earns its money.

How to decide in one minute

Take the hardest single thing you plan to do - not the average day - and pick the bike for that. One mountain day out of ten defines the choice, because the other nine work on anything. Every model page on EastRide states the licence needed, the seat height and the weight, so this decision happens before you book rather than in front of a stranger who wants to rent you something.